The Chimayó cocktail was created by Arturo Jaramillo, owner of the Rancho de Chimayó restaurant in Chimayó, New Mexico in 1965, the Chimayó cocktail is a tequila and apple cider based drink. Legend has it that Jaramillo was looking for a use for the apples that are plentiful in the Chimayó valley when he developed this signature drink of his restaurant.

Preparation and serving

The Chimayó cocktail is created by mixing 1½ oz tequila with 1 oz unfiltered apple cider, 1/4 oz fresh lemon juice and 1/4 oz creme de cassis over ice. According to Eric Felten, a James Beard Award recipient for Newspaper Writing on Spirits, Wine and Beer, the "touch of casis...gives the drink a pleasant, pale purplish hue and the sweetness needed to balance the tart lemon taste."

Nomenclature

Cider, in this article, is used in the North American sense to mean a non-alcoholic apple cider, not the alcoholic hard cider.